


The Investigation of M

by KISSHIMALREADY



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dramatic Irony, Eventual Gallavich, M/M, Melancholic!Ian, Mystery, POV Multiple, Tags Omitted to Prevent Fic Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:16:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KISSHIMALREADY/pseuds/KISSHIMALREADY
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian expected to learn quite a few handy things from his school textbooks...but not how to make a proper shiv. (a.k.a. that time Ian Gallagher underestimated his 17th birthday)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Book

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I just added a few edits and additional sentences after finding a chunk of my copy-and-paste missing. All patched up! *.*]

“Fiona, I can't take this,” Ian groaned, not bothering to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. He was determined not to get a better look at the jacket she'd dropped on his lap this Thursday morning, he didn't even want to touch it. Just with a glance, he could tell it was genuine leather, top-notch. Where or how she got it, he had no idea, but he knew he'd rather have the money thrown down on food for the house, or bills they would surely be behind on in the near future.

 

“Ian, don't be silly, this is a gift,” she grinned, holding it up to his chest with a proud look on her face. The jacket smelled like her, so he had a feeling she'd been holding it in her room for a while.

 

“Yeah, but-,”

 

“If Ian doesn't want it, I'll take it,” Carl's tired voice interrupted from his bunk.

 

“No. Look, Ian, I know what you're thinkin', alright? So, don't. Take your present, and Happy Birthday,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the forehead. Her tone basically shut down any further argument, proving that a stubborn Fiona always won against a morning Ian. Slowly, he took the jacket in his hands as his bed lifted upon his sister's exit. With a clearer vision, he could see that the black jacket had a dark gray woolen hood with matching sleeves. It was badass. Immediately, he slid it on and reveled in the soft warmth, already excited to step out of the house to show off his new threads. He couldn't remember the last time he had gotten something brand new, just for him. It wasn't until he was examining the zipper that he realized he didn't get to say “thank you”. But he knew that she didn't need to hear it aloud if he happened to forget.

 

“Cool,” Carl remarked. Ian looked up to see his younger brother's head popping up from behind his old afghan. He figured Liam must have already been eating breakfast downstairs, because usually he'd be echoing Carl's one-worded comments from his crib.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Ian wasn't scheduled to work for his birthday, but, being a Gallagher, he couldn't sleep in if he wanted to. His home wasn't really a house, but more like an urban-industrial machine chugging its residents in and out of the streets.

 

By the time Ian made it downstairs, refreshed and a little more than accepting of his birthday present, the rest of the house was already one step ahead of him. Debbie and Carl were eating breakfast with Liam at the table, their backpacks just one maneuver away from being on their backs. Vee and Fiona were giggling about something over cups of coffee at the counter, small remnants off food and small puddles of syrup on their plates. Four out of five of them, the odd man out being Carl, sang a lazy and hurried version of the birthday song, and he pretended to be annoyed but the smile he gave them was one hundred percent genuine.

 

“Good morning, birthday _man_ ,” Vee cooed, pulling Ian into a tight hug before stepping back to yank at his jacket. “I told you it'd fit, Fi.”

 

“Yeah, alright. So,” Fiona grinned, passing him a large plate of blueberry pancakes and steaming hot scrambled eggs. “What are you gonna do today?”

 

“Not sure. Lip hasn't texted back on when he's coming, so I guess I'll hang out at school.”

 

“You're seriously _going_?” Carl asked. He scrunched his face up at Ian as he joined his younger siblings.

 

“Not everyone just goes to school to goof off, Carl. _Some_ people like learning,” Debbie snarked. This set the two of them off, as per usual, and Ian was content with stuffing his face across from Liam.

 

Within five minutes, everyone was out of the Gallagher house. Fiona headed across the street with Liam to drop him off at Sheila's before her shift at the diner. Vee went to her house to rejoin her mom and babies. He thought he'd be able to at least walk one block with Debbie and Carl, but one skipped ahead to a group of middle school girls while the latter hopped into a car. He barely even got his “goodbye” out before he was left standing alone on their street. He rolled his eyes at the sight of his little brother and sister's effortlessly-abundant social life. Ian would have felt lucky to at least have someone to sit by during lunch. Three years of high school, and all they'd gotten him were occasional flirt-and-chase scenarios with some girls and maybe a few jokes with Trevor in his Advanced Literature class. Hell, he didn't even notice how shitty his lack of friends made him feel until Lip graduated and went off to college. Ian just got so accustomed to his brother being around.

 

The cautious look a passing mailman gave him made ian realize he was standing on their sidewalk and staring at their fence like a complete idiot. Burying the disappointment of his loner status, he dragged his feet to school.

 

***

 

Ian wasn't impressed when he got to his first class. The day was following the usual routine. His classmates blurted out anything they could possibly think of in the middle of the lesson, laughing and hitting each other across the aisles of their desks. Judging from the way the teacher reacted to the chaos, Ian felt like he could sit in a room full of aggressive dogs barking at a dangling snack and not tell much of a difference. He hated it. The sound of all of their voices, asking each other how their nights went. Ian got the impression that most of them didn't care. They just wanted to have an excuse to talk about themselves. He couldn't figure out if he truly felt this way or if he was just being a bitter asshole. Either way, he didn't want to hear them.

 

By second period, the sole idea of high school was absolutely unbearable. The clocks appeared to tick back with each second, five minutes going by after Ian could have _sworn_ he last checked the time twenty minutes ago. He turned his attention to Erica, who read her chapter analysis for US Government to the class from her seat. The way she hissed out all of the 's' sounds in her paper made him cringe, so Ian quietly traced the college-ruled lines in his notebook with a semi-busted pen, the ink leaving smudges on his palms and the desk.

 

By the end of third period, he was slouching out of Chemistry II class with the intention of dying from the boredom before an altercation happened right before his very eyes. A tall, geeky guy was strolling past the lockers before a hefty member of the basketball team charged at him and slammed a wooden birdhouse in the poor guy's face. The piece that managed to break off and stab into the geeky guy's face was enough to cause serious trauma, and the blood spatters glistened on the worn tiles. They were definitely gonna leave a stain, Ian noted. A yell erupted and the two boys found themselves quickly encased in a fight circle. Next thing Ian knew, he was surrounded by animals as they watched two angry teenagers battle it out in the hall. Disgusted, he turned away and headed to Algebra II. The shouting continued even after the bell rang as he stepped into class. Only twelve people actually showed up.

 

“I hope you have your book, Ian. We're having a study hall period today, some independent review.”

 

His teacher said it rhetorically. It was clear that the only thing on his person, aside from his new jacket, was a light backpack and two notebooks in his hands.

 

“Sorry, I, uh, didn't have-See, the traffic in front of my locker isn't so good right now. I kind of got distracted-,”

 

“Oh dear god,” she muttered as the school principal's voice pierced the intercoms. Something about security and detention slips and witnesses. When Principal Carter asked all faculty members to collect as many students as they could from the hallways, Ms. Shufle rubbed her eyes beneath her dumb glasses and stomped towards the door.

 

“Just grab one of the extras from storage, Ian.”

 

After seeing what was going down in the halls, he could admit that having a normal, slow day wasn't so bad. At least, compared to being smacked in the face with a woodshop project. So he pulled one of the shitty old textbooks from the canvas cart in the small storage closet, settled in, and turned to Chapter 6, mentally preparing himself for that specific kind of attention dull textbooks demand. Only, there was something that instantly caught his eye. In the first image, where a notable mathematician was seated in a library, was graffiti, and Ian had to physically cover his laugh, hunching in his seat. Someone had drawn, with impressive detail, a cartoonic mouse kneeling beneath the table, giving the man in the photo a handjob. There were movement lines surrounding its gloved hands, and splatters filling the entire page. All in black Sharpie and White-Out. Ian snuck his phone out and snapped a picture to send to Lip, and he was just about to swap out his book for a copy that wasn't framed with pubic swirls, until he noticed a small block of text written in the background of the photo.

 

**Turn to page 254!**

 

He knew that he was bound to fall into a ridiculous textbook goose chase that'd probably end with another obnoxious sketch, but he couldn't resist the temptation. He did as instructed, to be faced with...a quick, personal note and map drawn in the large amount of space beneath practice questions.

 

**Yo, kiddo. You made it this far and it's time to let you go out for a smoke. 323!**

 

The map was a minimal aerial view of the main school building, and highlighted very specific nooks for secret smoke breaks. After three years of ducking in and out of the building for a smoke or two, Ian considered himself quite the expert on where and when to go to do so. Looking at this map made him feel like a complete novice. There was a short door behind the supply closet next to the first floor bathrooms that led out to a tiny patch of land where trash cans used to be before the locker room was built and blocked it off. Apparently, it was still there, this unknown negative space.

 

“No fucking way,” he whispered, advancing to page 323, as the note told him. He seriously had to do his late homework assignment, this was his second time taking this course, specifically because he hadn't turned in all of his homework at the time. He was on a good streak with a B-plus, but he couldn't stop his hands from flipping the pages around, possessed by the orders of this strange individual. Within an hour, Ian found more obscene and violent doodles, a list of teachers with bullet-points on what they let you get away with in class, some lyrics to songs Ian couldn't recognize, and that wasn't even the best of it. What caught his eye the most were two things. First, the unexpected studying session with M, as the culprit called himself.

 

Everyone in Algebra II knew that their IPS outdated textbooks had all of the answers in the back of the book for the end-of-chapter questions. While a majority of their homework were these very questions, Ian had no problem pulling half-assed techniques out and rounding off to the given answer. Except, when he went to find these pages, the majority of them had been aggressively ripped out, save for one. In huge, bold, red letters, the bastard had written:

 

**Don't even fucking think about it, dumbass. Go to page 110, we'll start from there.**

 

And they did just that. The page of practice problems and questions M had singled out was filled to the edges with walk-throughs and highlights and smart-ass comments, making rationalizing denominators look like a piece of cake. And it worked. When M instructed him to do a few of the problems on his own, he did, and was shocked to find that it was a lot less stressful than usual. It made him wonder how a bunch of scribbles did more for him than Ms. Shufle, who was sitting back with her shoes propped on her desk as she repeated steps on a particular formula on the board for the class. It also made him wonder, as much as it irritated him, if this momentary pride was how Lip felt 24-7. It made him wonder why his brain couldn't just latch onto these lessons just by reading a handful of words on the page. It made him feel a little incompetent, instead of like a student doing the best that he could. It was a strange, self-righteous revelation that he was having here, and he swallowed it down and carried on.

 

The other thing that fascinated him was the massive amount of brazen comments. Sometimes they were only sentences, sometimes they were large entries about M's day. The longer ones tended to come with the cartoon mouse, always in some cut-off shirt with a single dangle earring hanging from one of its big ears, and always with a small ID patch on its chest that read “M”. Ian was surprised by how cute he found it.

 

**Talk to Paul from the cafeteria if you want the good shit from the kitchen.**

 

**Are you feeling like you wanna just flip your desk over and bash a motherfucker's brains in right now? That must mean you heard one of Mr F's long stories about his daughters recital. Guess what, Mr F, NO ONE GIVES HALF A FUCK**

 

Ian chuckled quietly at the rant. _Lunatic_ came to mind as Ian flipped to a random page and saw the recurring Mickey Mouse ripoff casually leaning against a messy pile of words with a cigarette:

 

**Eric: 1 bj, Tony: no bj, 2 hj, Daniels: 1 bj, 3 hj**

**E(1a) + T (2b) + D(1a+3b) = blue balls**

**[…] I'm too high to be in class [..] is every fag in this building a moron when it comes to hookin up or am I just special? Word of advice, don't let a guy with designs sewn onto his jeans blow you.**

 

Ian had a small window to react to that last entry before his phone buzzed in his hoodie.

 

Lip: _Haha, sweet cartoon. A true artist. Hows your birthday, little bro?_

 

Ian: _It was in a book from the rejected pile in the class. And it's going alright I guess. Are you coming by tonight?_

 

Lip: _Of course. I'll be home an hour after your school lets out. :-D_

 

Ian: _Cool, can't wait to hang out._

 

The sound of the lunch bell made him jump, and he frowned at the board and his notebook. He had no trouble keeping up with notes during class; But it was startling to see that his notes took up three pages this time, solutions and examples that he'd done himself peppered in. For once, he was looking forward to his next class. Standing up with his backpack, he weighed the Algebra II book in his hands, looking down at the stripped down cardboard cover. Ms. Shufle was staring at him from her desk with an expectant look on her face, and Ian hesitated his walk towards her.

 

“Oh my, you must be the first one to pick that ugly thing up. I thought it got thrown away years ago. Surprised it still opens. Want me to toss that back in the cart?” she asked him, holding out her hand.

 

“Um...no, I'll stick with this one. It has more pages than the one I have in my locker, anyway,” he chuckled nervously. Not that he let himself sound nervous, but that's what he was. He definitely didn't like the idea of his teacher taking a look at what the book contained, something the faculty clearly never did over the years. It wasn't that he expected to be accused of defacing property—it was already from the rejects pile. He just didn't want this M character to be taken away from him before he could-

 

Actually, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do about this book just yet.

 

Ms. Shufle sighed and rolled back from her desk to yank her lunch from the bottom drawer. Ian spotted ants on a log and a ton of round crackers with a jar of Nutella, and he grinned in surprise when she offered him one of the celery snacks.

 

“What's got you cheesing so much today?” she asked, returning a grin, which was weird considering she still maintained her boring tone. He noticed that up close, when he really got a good look at her, Ms. Shufle's “dumb brown hair” was actually shiny and wavy in that top bun, and her eyes were extraordinarily big and a gorgeous mahogany behind her “dumb glasses”. It made him feel guilty for falling in line with his classmates' perspectives on certain teachers. Sure, most of them at his school were assholes, but there were a few of them who were decent. Ms. Shufle never really singled people out or gave Ian shit for no reason. She seemed to be above it, yet slightly over the entire idea of being a teacher. She came off as shamelessly self-aware in a classroom full of teenagers who hated her by association.

 

“It's my birthday, is all,” he shrugged, not really making a big deal out of it. He never really did. Every Gallagher kid knew that the popular expectations of turning a certain age weren't relevant to them, no matter how badly they wanted them. There were no Sweet Sixteens happening in their house. It didn't matter when Fiona turned 21, she had already been going to bars and partying like it was her birthday nearly every week, as well as Lip. And Ian. There was only one thing they expected on their birthdays, and that was free reign to play hookey. Glancing at the students crowding the hallways to get to lunch, he decided to take the opportunity while it was still early in the day. Maybe after he takes that smoke break.

 

“Happy Birthday, Ian,” Ms. Shufle said. “Celebrate with chapter seven.”

 

She said it with a sarcastic, teasing tone that made him laugh this time.

 

“I will.”

 


	2. The Boy

Public school bullying was inevitable. No matter how hard the PSAs and celebrities and talk shows tried to put a lid on the issue, bullying was never going away. It was immortal. It was timeless. It was unprejudiced in its victimizing. So, in 2014, the potential in the bullying world was fantastic. Being a certain race, or pregnant, or mentally-challenged didn't stop anyone's chance to participate. If anybody happened to fall into any type of category that wasn't the ideal Southside Chicago student, that person was fine if they could hold their own and stand up for their self. Ian wasn't afraid of confrontation, he'd been tried a couple of times, but he did his best to avoid falling into drama and it was a success so far. He wasn't loudly out, but he didn't really hide it, either.

 

According to M's rambles, however, being gay was a malady, enough to get you stabbed in the middle of class if you so much as stared at anyone of the same sex.

 

**Stay outta the locker room. Knowing you, you're bound to be hanging by your balls from the flagpole by the end of the day. Be careful. -M**

 

Beneath the note was an inventory of school supplies, and a step-by-step guide to creating a D.I.Y. weapon within sixty seconds. Just when he thought he would cease to be amazed, M would do something like this. Ian expected to learn quite a few handy things from his school textbooks...but not how to make a proper shiv. He mentally filed away the drawings as he bit into the peanut butter and banana sandwich he packed for himself. He was sitting in a corner of the entrance hall on the floor, back against the last locker as a few girls did the same ten feet away. They cracked down on people sitting in the halls for lunch period for a few weeks until they decided it was fine that some students decided to be out in the open, more worried about the students who went out of their way to disappear.

 

For someone so paranoid, this guy sure as hell wasn't showing it by marking up a large book used in class. It was baffling.

 

Ian: _Ever know any gay guys in your class whose name started with M?_

 

Ian flipped to the front cover of the book to check the name list. Of course it was all scratches from various pens, maybe used to test if they ran out of ink or not. No “M” names, if he didn't count Carmen, the first name penciled in cursive on the first line. Car **m** en, Tinisha, George, and Jon. No help at all. Maybe.

 

Lip: _Let me think back on my daily interactions with my wide range of lgbt friends over a year ago. No not that I recall._

 

Ian: _Point taken, asshole_

 

Lip: _Why?_

 

Ian: _I'll tell you later :/_

 

It just wasn't making much sense to Ian, that someone would take the time to do something like this. Sure, their actual name wasn't in it, not that he saw so far, but...who did M expect to carry this book around? The instructions and musings were very pointed and comfortable. It had to be done for a friend or something? Or just a general outlet? Who last had the book, and how the hell did it manage to remain buried in storage for so long? There was no telling what year this was marked up, all of the Algebra II books weren't updated.

 

Ian snapped his attention to the girls eating nearby. They were smiling at him and shoving at the girl in the middle with long black curls. Her face was completely red.

 

“Hey, ginger! Our friend wants to tell you something!”

 

Shoving the book into his bag, he rose to his feet, the girls abruptly going quiet as he passed them to head towards the supply closet by the bathrooms around the corner. As he walked, he shot them a tiny smile, getting an eruption of “wait, come back” and “what's your name”.

 

The lock on the large, brown metal door had been picked a few times already. He could tell as he jammed two of Debbie's bobby pins in the keyhole, fiddling until he heard a click. Glancing around, he slipped in, just in time for the fifth period bell to go off. With the dim light of his cellphone, he maneuvered around the space, tripping over a large mop bucket and stepping into a box full of terry cloths. Then he saw it: a four-foot-tall door in the left corner.

 

He was surprised to see it wasn't painted over or plastered down. It was just a door with an old, rusty knob. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed it and turned, yanking a few times before the jam loosened and suddenly Autumn sunlight was stretching across the closet floor. When he ducked through to step out into the space, it surprised him even more to see it was occupied, and his heart sped up.

 

A boy.

 

He was slightly shorter than Ian, leaning against the cement wall of the outdoor locker room that closed in the five-by-five patch of grass, flanked by brick on either side. Arms crossed, one foot propped up behind him, the boy flicked the end of a joint and watched Ian gawk at him with hesitation.

 

“You gonna close that door or just stand there like a retard?”

 

His voice was naturally deep and menacing, but somehow inviting. Ian did as he was told before standing up straight to size the guy up. He had skin just as pale as Ian, a few light brown freckles dotting random parts of his face, full pink lips and strikingly blue eyes. And his blond hair seemed to be pulled back into a ponytail, a couple of rebellious strands curving in front of his face. He wore a basic white t-shirt and black jeans with a chain over combat boots. He was easy on the eyes. Not too easy on the ears, though.

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you on acid or something?”

 

Ian shook himself out of his trance before yanking his pack of cigarettes out. He was down to three, and barely had enough for a new pack, but he figured the last two would last him until he caught up with Lip. Sliding the Newport between his lips, he peeked at the guy again, whose eyes refused to leave this random newcomer.

 

“Are you M?” Ian asked, deciding to go for it. The guy looked even more confused. Mostly pissed off.

 

“Is that code for something?”

 

Ian sighed and lit up. He got comfortable on the ground, and rested his head against the back of the small door to look up at the bright teal square of sky. No wind, just the distant sound of balls being kicked around and excited shouting from the nearby field. It was startlingly peaceful.

 

"Someone send you out here?”

 

“No, I-,”

 

“How the fuck did you find this spot?”

 

He looked to the guy again and saw that he was offering his joint, also sitting on the grass across from Ian. He reached for it immediately, wondering what it was about him that encouraged people to just hand things over to him that day. Not that he was complaining. Gift, horse, mouth, etc.

 

“I, uh...a friend told me about it. How did you find it?”

 

“I found it the first week here. Teacher made me clean up a mess I made in Bio. Saw this little opening. Been coming here ever since.”

 

Ian nodded as he took a drag of the joint. It was too much. The smoke shot back up with a vengeance and sent him into a sputtering mess as the guy sneered at him.

 

“Damn, dude. Take it easy, sheesh.”

 

He watched the boy tap incessantly on his knees. He was twitchy. And a bit on edge, it looked like, the way he blinked his eyes with force and darted them around their smoke spot, as if the walls were going to start closing in on them. Ian was confident that it was more appropriate for _him_ to tell _this guy_ to take it easy. Better judgment made him keep his mouth shut. He had a feeling that this guy wasn't too keen on taking comments like that from strangers, especially strangers who just popped up and smoked his weed.

 

“Ian,” he said instead. There was a sudden need to establish normalcy in the situation. After all, he was following creeping the boy out and interrogating him. The guy must have picked up on the necessity of the small talk, with how his shoulders relaxed a bit. He passed back to Ian, snapping his fingers to trade for his cigarette.

 

“Ian,” the boy repeated quietly. They paused to puff at their sticks of choice and simultaneously filled the air between them with smoke. Ian swatted at the cloud, already feeling loose and tingly. The way the boy watched the air clear around them with a far-off look in his eyes let Ian know that he was tossing the name around in his head. Not out of curiosity or recognition. It was like the boy was stalling. Like he was trying to figure out whether to reciprocate or not. Or maybe the guy was simply stoned. Or Ian was just high and over-thinking things. Switching back after Ian's third hit, the boy finally stared back at Ian with a new-found interest, all previous suspicion gone.

 

“I'm...” the guy mumbled, glancing down as he introduced himself.

 

Ian squinted at him and shook his head. Did he say Kev?

 

“Huh?”

 

“Yev. I'm Yev,” he said in a clearer, louder voice, over-enunciating each syllable. Ian chose not to react to being spoken to like he was half-deaf.

 

“Is that short for anything?”

 

“Does it fucking matter?” he snapped.

 

“No.”

 

The silence hit them in a sharp gust. Never in his life had he interacted with someone so defensive, so quick to pop off. It was slightly nerve-racking. Intriguing, but nerve-racking. And it wasn't like Ian scared easily anyway. Plus, despite his outstanding social life, he wasn't a complete imbecile. Anyone who acted like Yev clearly didn't walk on sunshine growing up. Hell, he would have been surprised if the guy smiled and said “nice to meet you”.

 

Ian got a small apology from the hand begrudgingly holding the roach out to him.

 

“You new?” Yev asked, chancing a look in Ian's eyes again before scowling and watching the smoke swirl from the half-gone cigarette now sitting between his fingers.

 

“I've been here for three years now.”

 

“And you're just now finding this spot?”

 

“I've never cleaned up a chemical spill in Bio,” Ian shrugged. And damn it if he didn't finally get a grin out of the boy before him, though he tried his best to tone it down.

 

“It was saltwater, asshole,” Yev shook his head at him, the stray hairs sliding across his face. He forced some blinks a few more times, twiddling his fingers in a way that looked uncomfortable. Tourettes, maybe? Drugs? Yev caught him studying him and stilled, the smile slipping back into something closed-off.

 

“I'm not gay.”

 

Ian raised his eyebrows, completely thrown off.

 

“I didn't say you were...?”

 

“But _you_ are.”

 

Ian tried to figure out how he was going to respond to this. Did he deny it to avoid getting into a fight with this maniac? Going with the untouchable feeling coursing through his body, he chose to not bullshit the guy. He could definitely take him. For some reason, Yev gave off the impression that he knew this too.

 

“Yeah, so?”

 

“So I don't like being stared at.”

 

He said it with skilled finality that basically meant the subject was being dropped. Not in defeat. He just seemed to have said what he wanted to say and was ready to move on. To what, Ian wasn't sure. How was he supposed to transition from that? Was the guy homophobic, or was he just not a fan of being scrutinized? And it's not like Ian felt like he had to defend himself. There wasn't anything to defend. Sure, he thought the guy was pretty- _fuck, it didn't even feel safe with the description in his own mind_ -but it's not like he was interested in him.

 

Just as Ian was about to reach for something to say, Yev cut him off.

 

“You have any snacks on you?”

 

Ian shook his head, tugging at the bottom of his jacket for some sort of emphasis that most likely made him look silly. Yev rolled his eyes in dissatisfaction before he jumped to his feet and started wiping off the back of his jeans. The warm grass was starting to feel amazing. Ian was floating by then, insides buzzing, that notorious Joker smile Lip always teased him about stretching across his face. Four hits had done it.

 

_How the hell is this guy moving so sure and fast at a time like this?_

 

“Guess we gotta go find some,” Yev sighed. The sunglasses he slid onto his face made him look like some action movie star. He tapped his left foot as his shadow draped Ian.

 

“Let's get a move on, then.”

 

Ian groaned in response, still smiling, and tilted his head back to rest against the door again.

 

“But I just got comfortable.”

 

Yev gave a weird interpretation of a chuckle, kicking at Ian's side to get him to roll out of the way and lie on the grass, the hood of his jacket only letting half of his face settle against the crisp blades.

 

“I think my car would be a little more comfortable.”

 

Quickly, he sat up, gaping at his new buddy.

 

“Did you say car?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming Up: Chapter Three - The Friend

**Author's Note:**

> There. You happy now? (Raises eyebrows)  
> :D  
> But seriously, got this weird idea and typed this around 12 AM. I have no beta and this is my first Gallavich that I'm braving to share, sorry if it's lame.


End file.
